Saso Mijalkov

Macedonia's opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev faces fresh criminal charges after being charged with attempted blackmail and for soliciting bribery already.

Now he faces a third charge, of revealing state secrets, after publishing wiretapped conversations which he claimed contained the voice of secret police chief, Saso Mijalkov.

Macedonian secret police chief Saso Mijalkov on Wednesday said he intended to sue opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev over claims that he sought bribes from the Israelis to fast-track a procurement.

The Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, which is part of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's ruling coalition, said on Monday that its leader had not discussed with the Macedonian premier the possibility of its rival, the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, joining the government which is currently under fire over mass wiretapping allegations.

Top officials from Macedonia's ruling VMRO-DPMNE party did every unlawful activity they could think of in order to win the local election in 2013 in the municipality of Centar in Skopje, the mayor of the municipality, Andrej Zernovski, claimed on Thursday.

Zoran Zaev, head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, SDSM, has called on people to join the party when it reveals what it promises will be the "most significant, most insolent and most outrageous examples" of electoral fraud committed by Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and his ruling VMRO DPMNE party.

Gruevski, who insists that he has nothing with alleged wiretapping of more than 20,000 people, said that a press release issued by his VMRO DPMNE party had been misunderstood and was not calling for violence against government opponents.

Over a hundred Macedonian journalists were wiretapped, including the editors of pro-government media as well as journalists that critique the government, opposition Social Democrat leader Zoran Zaev announced on Wednesday while unveiling his fourth political "bombshell".

Macedonia's opposition Social Democratic party, SDSM, published seven more conversations on Friday, which the party said showed the arrest of opposition politician Ljube Boskoski was a setup.

Ljube Boskoski, a former Interior Minister and former leader of the United for Macedonia party, was arrested on June 6th 2011, one day after the general elections of that year.

On his first visit to Macedonia, the EU Commissioner for Neighbourhood policy and Enlargement negotiations, Johannes Hahn said opposition claims about government surveillance of thousands of citizens need investigating.  

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski declined on Monday to comment directly on the latest press conference of the opposition Social Democrats SDSM on Sunday, where five recordings were presented involving discussions between state officials, judges and a pro-government news editor on appointments of judges as well as court cases and prosecutors' work.